Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Professor earns fellowship to research medieval English morality plays

Gail McMurray Gibson said that her college professors first sparked her interest in medieval studies. She has pursued that interest and become one of the most inspiring and decorated teachers in Davidson College. She has received the college’s Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, and was named North Carolina Professor of the Year in 1987 by the national Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

Now Gibson has received yet another honor — a short-term fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library to conduct research for a chapter of a new book she’s writing titled Medieval Drama in Afterlife. Each chapter concerns the way that medieval Catholic religious drama texts continued to be defiantly protected after England adopted the Protestant Reformation.